Your wife/husband still in love with their ex....

[facaldo]

One of the worst things I could think of is being married to someone who is still in love with their ex, especially if I had just found out after years of marriage.

My question is, how would you feel if you had just found out after months or years of marriage that the person you are legally bounded to, is still in love with their ex. They still carry that torch for them. They cannot love you in the same manner but still willing to stay in this marriage with you.

It may not be called physical cheating because your partner isn't physically cheating on you but can this be called emotional cheating? For all you know, they could be thinking about their ex all this time, thinking about them when cooking/eating your favourite meals, imagining them instead of you when making love, remembering them on special events like birthdays etc etc.


How would you deal with this? Would you feel cheated on? or would you empathise with your partner and feel her/his loss and the pain of sacrificing their love to get into this marriage with you?

 

[Ionait]

I probably wouldn't have gotten myself into that situation to begin with honestly, and unless you rush into marriage (which actually most people do nowadays sadly.. 6 months of dating is NOT a long time world!) neither would anyone else. If you have taken the time to really know the person you love and want to marry and spend the rest of your life with, you probably would have caught on to the fixation on the ex before marriage. If not, that's your fault and now you have to deal with something very messy.

Love is love though, and whether you are "legally bound" to the person by marriage or not, if you love them enough, knowing about their fixation on their ex would really hurt you. Before marriage you would have the softer option of calling it off if you find that person really won't give it up and it is putting a big strain on the relationship. After marriage, breaking up is a lot harder.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

...unfortunately that sounds like bad news waiting to happen.

 

[Aardvark]

You'd need to get married first. There's something I don't see ever happening to me.

It's weird though, still being in love with an ex. At first, you think it's just because things didn't end the way you wanted them to, you need time to adjust. After a while, you wonder if you just miss them because all relationships after them are unfulfilling. But over the years, the feeling doesn't vanish, it fades into the background, taking a nice big place in your subconscious, just waiting for scents and sounds to remind you, bringing the whole feeling flooding back. All future relationships are coloured by that one, all compared and measured up. The ones that come close (They'll never be able to surpass the one you're obsessing over, as absence only makes the heart grow fonder), you'll be able to let yourself believe will be it. But it won't. No matter how strongly you feel, that old feeling will come back to haunt you. You can either bury it or you can talk about it, but most people don't want to hear that they're still being compared to someone from so long ago, they might as well be dead. So you bury it down, trying to forget.

Then the worst thing happens. They make contact with you. Could just be an email or a friend request on facebook. Something small and innocuous. They've moved on and want to try and salvage a friendship out of it. But you've still got that feeling burning away inside you. If you talk about it, you're in danger of freaking them out. But them being there is rekindling this feeling. You can just easily block them and try to forget, but you know that they're still there and you just can't resist the temptation to remove whatever block you put in place, "just to see how they're going". God help you if they invite you to anything. Because you will go, no matter what. You might drag your current partner if you have one, but you'll go. You'll sit there at whatever it is, feeling all the old feelings again, but unable to talk about them, lest you ruin the mood.

I tell you, when Lacuna Inc open up, they'll be swimming in money.

 

[facaldo]

I probably wouldn't have gotten myself into that situation to begin with honestly, and unless you rush into marriage (which actually most people do nowadays sadly.. 6 months of dating is NOT a long time world!) neither would anyone else. If you have taken the time to really know the person you love and want to marry and spend the rest of your life with, you probably would have caught on to the fixation on the ex before marriage. If not, that's your fault and now you have to deal with something very messy.

Love is love though, and whether you are "legally bound" to the person by marriage or not,

if you love them enough, knowing about their fixation on their ex would really hurt you. Before marriage you would have the softer option of calling it off if you find that person really won't give it up and it is putting a big strain on the relationship. After marriage, breaking up is a lot harder.

After marriage, breaking up is a lot harder.

Specially when you are into 3-4 years of marriage only to discover that she has some thing for her ex.
I guess its a punishment for people who rushed into marriage without prior investigation.

 

[curlycrouton]

I don't really see the relevance of this thread. OK, so if your partner's still in love with their ex then that's a bad thing, but being speared in the leg with a blunt pencil is as well, why don't we make a thread about that?

 

[Evilbunny]

I'm unclear on what we're actually discussing. Are we trying to figure out if having a thing for your ex is considered a type of cheating? If so, then no, but it's still a problem that needs to be worked out.

 

[Zallest]

My girlfriend still talks about her Ex but not in a good way. It still bothers me when she brings up the idea of him as a person. He was a jerk to her and she likes to sit and tell me how i am different but I'd rather her just stop talking about him at all.

just like the wise PedroSteckecilo said

...unfortunately that sounds like bad news waiting to happen.

the best thing you can do is tell the person you're uncomfortable about it and if they love you then those feeling will wither away.

 

[Unholykrumpet]

I tell you, when Lacuna Inc open up, they'll be swimming in money.

Internet points for the Eternal Sunshine reference. I don't think I'd ever go that far though, for in all my relationships I've had, there have been good and bad times. I've grown because of the bad ones, and to forget them is to forget what made you grow as a person.

Not that it's not tempting, it just causes more problems long term than it solves short term.

 

[Isaac Dodgson]

One of the worst things I could think of is being married to someone who is still in love with their ex, especially if I had just found out after years of marriage.

My question is, how would you feel if you had just found out after months or years of marriage that the person you are legally bounded to, is still in love with their ex. They still carry that torch for them. They cannot love you in the same manner but still willing to stay in this marriage with you.

It may not be called physical cheating because your partner isn't physically cheating on you but can this be called emotional cheating? For all you know, they could be thinking about their ex all this time, thinking about them when cooking/eating your favourite meals, imagining them instead of you when making love, remembering them on special events like birthdays etc etc.


How would you deal with this? Would you feel cheated on? or would you empathise with your partner and feel her/his loss and the pain of sacrificing their love to get into this marriage with you?

How would I feel if I suddenly found out I'm in second place? Meh i'd be a bit upset, but such is life...

Why do you bring this up anyway?

 

[Zac_Dai]

You know people don't have a limit on the amount of love they have to give.

There is nothing wrong with still having feelings for past lovers as long as it doesn't interfere with the current relationship. I mean you even get those rare relationships where there is more than 2 people involved and they live happy love filled lives.

But what you describe sounds like the person no longer loves the other one but stays at out some sense of duty or maybe guilt. Which is wrong in a sense.

I don't think you can emotionally cheat on someone either, its not like if you sexually fantasise about a woman you know that you've mind raped them or something.

 

[kapzer]

Yea...I just got hurt too. My girlfriend was proposed to yesterday by an ex who she's still close with. I flipped.

 

[chronobreak]

First off, I would severely injure/main the guy, or hire somebody to do it if I was worried he'd roll on me once he healed. After that, I'd get my lawyer on the phone, start the divorce proceedings. I would also piss in her kool-aid, or do something to that effect. It may not all work out so well, but believe me, they would BOTH be sorry.

 

[ffxfriek]

...unfortunately that sounds like bad news waiting to happen.

pedro you took the words from my mouth

 

[DangerChimp]

Wow - if you guys are married and she still has feelings for her ex, you're in a heap of trouble. Past relationships are important because she wouldn't be the person she is today without them, but the key word is "past." And while breaking up a marriage is obviously harder to do than with just a dating relationship, you may find yourself on that path before too long because things like this tend to fester rather than just fade away happily. Infidelity is also a major concern in a case like this.

 

[facaldo]

What if its the other way round. What if its HE, the one cheating and SHE the one being victim. What should be HER's preferred stance

 

[Galletea]

You sure do ask some very odd questions.
I would feel hurt and betrayed that they had kept up the pretence for so long and lied the entire time.
Then perhaps I'd feel bad for them as they'd lived a life they didn't want for so long.

 

[Zeldadudes]

If that was happening to me i would feel pushed down into the ground.
I would feel as if i was nothing to the person i was with.
I would feel as if i was just something for them to lean on, like a safe house.

I wouldn't stand for it though. I wouldn't want them to hold onto something like that and i wouldn't wait for them to get rid of it.

Think about it like this: Imagine you love someone so much but they don't feel the same way about you.
Feels bad right?

Ouch.

 

[kapzer]

I'm currently paranoid about losing my gf :/ I haven't seen or talked to her much in the last few days, and i find out that she got proposed to? Something isn't right here. I don't know what to do. Dating advice, anyone? lol ._. Emo mode imminent D: